Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation : Routledge : 9780754603634 : 0754603636 : 28 Oct 2001 : Over the first four decades of the Reformation, hundreds of songs written in popular styles and set to well-known tunes appeared across the German territories. These polemical songs included satires on the pope or on Martin Luther, ballads retelling historical events, translations of psalms and musical sermons. They ranged from ditties of one strophe to didactic Lieder of fifty or more. Luther wrote many such songs and this book contends that these songs, and the propagandist ballads they inspired, had a greater effect on the German people than Luther's writings or his sermons. Music was a major force of propaganda in the German Reformation. Rebecca Wagner Oettinger examines a wide selection of songs and the role they played in disseminating Luther's teachings to a largely non-literate population, while simultaneously spreading subversive criticism of Catholicism. These songs formed